In a 5-4 decision published late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, holding that pregnant people in the U.S. no longer have a constitutional right to an abortion. In the short time since this historic ruling, Americans have wondered how this may impact the U.S.'s surprisingly abysmal maternal healthcare system. On their website for the U.S., Every Mother Counts notes that "today, a woman is twice as likely to die from complications of pregnancy and birth than her mother was a generation ago." We do not have to look to past generations to see what may occur in the U.S. in the absence of Roe's protections. Instead, we can look at Poland today to see what has happened in the year since the country banned abortions in nearly all circumstances.

Caught in the middle of a contentious dispute between Belarus and the European Union (EU), refugees and asylum seekers from Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa are stranded in frigid temperatures at the border of Belarus and Poland. Some governments have alleged that Belarus is trying to instigate a conflict, conceivably to retaliate against EU sanctions.